International cricket tour

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International cricket tours are the traditional form of encounter between two national teams in cricket . They evolved from private tours by cricket teams in the mid-19th century and have included official internationals since 1877. Today they mostly consist of several Test , One-Day International and Twenty20 games.

history

Before the official internationals

The first meeting between two teams from different nations came in 1844 when a Canadian team visited the United States. In 1859 the first tour of a team of English professional players to North America followed and since 1861 English teams toured Australia and from 1864 New Zealand. As is customary with international tours for a long time, the foreign teams traveled to the host country on ships for weeks. There they spent months playing numerous games against various teams before they started their return journey.

The first official internationals

On the tour of an English selection in Australia in 1877, in addition to a series of games against first-class teams, two games against a Combined Australia XI were played. In retrospect, the teams were referred to as the English and Australian national teams. The two games are considered the first tests to be held today. Subsequently, more and more official national teams were set up in both countries. In 1882 Australia won a test on English soil for the first time during a tour of the Australian team in England. In doing so, they founded the Ashes , in which England and Australia continue to hold a tour with several tests at regular intervals. These tours are now considered the most important tours on the international cricket calendar. From 1889, South Africa was also included in tours. However, it took until 1906 for South Africa to win a test for the first time.

Expansion after the First World War

From the 1930s onwards, India , the West Indies, and New Zealand were elevated to the rank of test nation. The internationals were initially dominated by Australia and England and so the Ashes Tests were the most important tours held. During this time, the importance of these tours in social awareness began to grow. The Ashes series, known as the Bodyline Series, threatened to trigger a diplomatic crisis in 1932/33 when the English team was accused of unsportsmanlike play by the Australian side and this accusation was met with public disapproval in England. Only an intervention by the Australian government was able to smooth things over again.

Major changes after World War II

The first nation to enter test cricket after World War II was Pakistan in 1947 . After South Africa refused to accept the "colored" player Basil D'Oliveira, who had emigrated to the United Kingdom due to apartheid, on a tour of the English team, South Africa was excluded from official cricket tours by the World Federation in 1970. In the period that followed, however, there were repeated private and rebel tours trying to maintain international cricket in South Africa. From 1971 onwards, one-day internationals were regularly held on the tours. The Cricket World Cup , held in the ODI from 1975 onwards, was the international competition that took place regularly within the cricket seasons. In 1977 the official tours faced competition when entrepreneur Kerry Packer tried to organize his own tours. The tours known as World Series Cricket between 1977 and 1979 introduced many changes, but were discontinued after the second season and the outgoing players were reintegrated into official cricket.

Modern cricket tours

With the addition of Sri Lanka in 1982, Zimbabwe in 1992 and Bangladesh in 2000, the current ten test nations were completed. From 1992 tours with the participation of South Africa were allowed again. Since 1992 the world association has had a given schedule, now called the ICC Future Tours Program , which defines a mandatory program of tours for each test nation. This ensures that each test nation plays an away and a home tour against each other within ten years. However, this regulation also includes the possibility of refusing a tour for security reasons. The test nations are free to arrange further tours bilaterally via this fixed program. In the last few years, short tours against nations that only have ODI status (e.g. Ireland , Scotland and Afghanistan ) have increasingly been held . These only contain ODIs or Twenty20 and are used by these teams to gain gaming experience before the big tournaments.

mode

A tour usually consists of a set number of tests, ODIs and Twenty20s. The ICC stipulates in its compulsory program that this should be at least two tests and three ODIs. However, it happens again and again that this compulsory program is split up over several years and only individual formats are carried out in a tour. There are also so-called tour matches. These games mostly take place against national national teams or the professional first class teams of the home association. They serve as preparation of the visiting team for the local conditions of the pitches . This is necessary because these are inferior to strong differences due to the climatic conditions in the individual countries. In these games, the national teams do not compete under their original names, but instead use Australians (Australia) or England XI (England), for example. In recent years there has been a reduction in these preparation games due to time constraints, which is seen as a factor that the home teams were able to record an increased win rate. The tours are each assigned to a season, with nations only receiving opposing teams in their respective summer months. To emphasize that the year is divided into two parts, there are two seasons per calendar year. In the summer months of the northern hemisphere , referred to as the season with the respective calendar year (e.g. 2015 ), England, for example, plays its home games. In contrast, in the summer months of the southern hemisphere Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India carry out their home tours, which are given with two years (e.g. 2015/16 ). Nations without distinct seasons such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe carry out home tours throughout the year. Furthermore, the rainy season is taken into account in some countries in order to minimize interruptions to the game due to the weather.

Importance of tours

In addition to the sporting importance, the tours have also become socially important in many participating nations. The fact that a foreign national team plays numerous games in a country in the summer months, sometimes over a period of months, attracts increased media attention. This is favored by the fact that the sports often competing in these countries, soccer and rugby , usually have their seasons in the winter months. Especially on tours with countries that have a rivalry, such as Australia and England or Pakistan and India, these series also have political significance. For example, the so-called cricket diplomacy was carried out between Pakistan and India since the 1980s , where the presence of a state president at a game was seen as a political symbol. Until 2005, the home tests of the English team during the tours in England were specified as mandatory to be broadcast on free TV , before the English association negotiated with the British government to accept a more lucrative pay-TV contract.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin Williamson: The oldest international contest of them all ( English ) Cricinfo. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  2. ^ Ed Smith: Patriot game ( English ) Guardian. July 3, 2005. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  3. ↑ England Cricket Team ( English ) SS Great Britain. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  4. ↑ Steven Bloor: England's Ashes tours to Australia - in pictures ( English ) Guardian. November 20, 2013. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  5. ↑ Martin Williamson: The birth of Test cricket ( English ) Cricinfo. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  6. ↑ Jason Rodrigues: 1877: The birth of Test cricket ( English ) Guardian. July 21, 2011. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  7. ↑ John Mehaffey: Crisis evokes bodyline series ( English ) News24. November 24, 2001. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  8. ↑ Jason Rodrigues: Bodyline: 80 years of cricket's greatest controversy ( English ) BBC. January 16, 2013. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  9. ↑ Barry Richards: From Apartheid to world dominance ( English ) BBC. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  10. ↑ Gareth Evans: Branded a rebel: When cricket took on apartheid in South Africa ( English ) CNN. January 6, 2014. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  11. ↑ Martin Williamson: A brief history ( English ) Cricinfo. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  12. ↑ World Series gone, but can't be forgotten ( English ) The Age. May 31, 2003. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  13. ↑ Tariq Engineer: More Tests for major countries in FTP draft ( English ) Cricinfo. June 25, 2011. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  14. ^ Charles Alexander & Peter Oborne: Will Test cricket survive the Age of India? ( English ) The Spectator. February 1, 2014. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  15. ↑ Nagraj Gollapudi: Chingoka - 'We expect England to tour' ( English ) Cricinfo. February 4, 2004. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  16. ↑ Rob Steen: Bring back the FTP ( English ) Cricinfo. November 12, 2014. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  17. ↑ Tom Fordyce: Ashes 2015: Is home advantage becoming too important? ( English ) BBC. August 9, 2015. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  18. ↑ Tony Cozier: A weapon called home advantage ( English ) Cricinfo. August 9, 2015. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  19. ↑ Tony Cozier: Musharraf visits India amid cricket diplomacy ( English ) China Daily. April 17, 2005. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  20. ↑ George Dobell: Sky deal reignites free-to-air debate ( English ) Cricinfo. January 8, 2015. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  21. ↑ Tim Fordyce: Ashes 2015: Will English cricket ever regain 2005 luster? ( English ) BBC. July 6, 2015. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  22. ^ Owen Gibson: Cricket to be center of tug-of-war between broadcasters ( English ) Guardian. January 23, 2009. Retrieved August 13, 2015.